Night of the Creeps is a mixed bag. For the most part, it's a very funny horror-comedy, but occasionally the film's true colors show through. Deep down, Night of the Creeps is a very pompous film; it's very self-referential, poking fun at different aspects of B-Movies and constantly gives a knowing wink to the audience, only to unintentionally suffer from the very aspects it was poking fun at. Despite these flaws, this is still a very fun and campy horror/comedy romp.
The script's plot is intentionally ludicrous; slug-like creatures from outer space attack a couple in the late 1950's, and the boyfriend is kept cryogenically frozen in a lab, only to be revived in a college prank nearly 30 years later. The slug-creatures apparently possess their victims, bringing them back to life as zombies. One character even remarks the situation as being like "a bad B-Movie", after finding the remains of one of the cryogenically frozen zombie's victims. Surprisingly most of the characters are flat archetypes, but there's one exception. One of the main characters is a grizzled cop who spouts nonsensical one-liners ("Miller time!") and has his own catchphrase, which he uses constantly. His character goes against the grain of the rest of the film. His character seems more fitting for a "Police Squad!"-type movie, not in a horror comedy about killer alien slugs. There's not much to be said about the other characters; the main character is the usual "I'm the relatable guy" type, and his sidekick is the annoying comic relief character. The sidekick's dialog is so over-the-top at times, it seems to be a parody of annoying sidekicks, though.
The humor here is very referential, and relies heavily on the viewer's knowledge of B-Movies. This isn't a parody or a send-up of horror movies however, even though it tries to act like one. This is just a very tongue-in-cheek horror-comedy, much like a precursor to the Scream movies, but with less direction in its humor. For example, there's recurring joke that different characters have the same surname as different horror movie directors (The main character's name Chris Romero, the love interest's name is Cynthia Cronenberg, there's a police officer named Sgt. Raimi, and so on). The dialog is also intentionally ridiculous, mostly coming from the annoying comic relief and the detective. But then at the same time the film has a straight-up parody opening, with a very ridiculous satire of 1950's science-fiction films. There's even a brief cameo by Dick Miller, a staple actor for any horror-comedy. The humor feels like it's all over the board, and that's because it is. Albeit the humor is usually funny, but some consistency would have been nice.
The main problem I had with this film, and really the only problem I have with it is the special effects aspect. For a film that makes fun of B-Movies constantly, and gives off a very smug "we're better than other horror movies because we're self-referential", it's really lacking in its special effects budget. The slug-aliens themselves look intentionally terrible, but everything else looks like they put effort into it. The zombie makeup and effects are ridiculously fake at times, and it doesn't seem to be on purpose, or else the film would have directed your attention towards that fact. For example, the end fight scene should have been really climactic and full of great special effects, because we spent the previous 70 minutes of the movie with a lot of buildup and almost no zombie or alien action up to that point. Instead we get shoddy-looking dummies in masks used for the impact shots, and really cheap looking makeup for the reaction shots any time a zombie is attacked. This culminates in a scene where the detective has to fight off several zombies, but we never get to see the fight. We hear the gunshots and cut to a brief bit with the main character. We cut back and the detective is standing over the twice-dead zombies. This could have been an interesting little gunfight scene, but instead we are left with an unsatisfactory reaction shot.
Despite all the flak I've given the film, it's still a fun watch. The opening sequence that parodies 1950's science-fiction films is absolutely hilarious. It's spot-on farce of the "meteorite lands near some teens in a car" plot device, and elements of the age-old "teens in the wood being stalked by a crazy guy" campfire story. The first two special effects in the film are pretty decent as well, which why I was so disappointed with the special effects at the end. Right before the sequence in the 1950's, we see some aliens aboard a space ship, trying to prevent one of their crew members from launching the space-slugs into Earth's orbit. The design for the aliens is really nifty looking (vaguely reminiscent of the cantina band aliens from Star Wars),and it's a shame we only get to see them during that one scene. We're introduced to the grizzled cop character in a dream sequence that contains the only other cool effect in the movie. The cop has a nightmare about the couple from the opening sequence, and upon finding their remains is confronted by the killer who for some reason looks like the Crypt Keeper from "Tales from the Crypt". We only see the killer briefly, but his design was really interesting. Strangely enough, when the killer is brought back to life via the space-slugs, the design for the killer/zombie is different than the one in the dream sequence.
Overall, this is a pretty entertaining movie. The jokes are funny for the most part, even if the characters spewing them are relatively flat. The special effects mostly lacking, but the two scenes that I previously mentioned are still really cool to look at. It's not a particularly suspenseful or creepy film, but it doesn't try to be. Night of the Creeps is more centered on the laughs. If you can tolerate some extremely tongue-in-cheek humor, than this is a film worth looking in to. If that's not really your thing, there are much better horror-comedies out there.
Enjoyment- 3.5/5
Quality- 3/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091630/
July 21, 2012
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